005 STAR TREK: Admiral's Writ
by Dan Bivens
Summary: Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen is transported onto the ENTERPRISE because of a strange and potentially deadly situation overshadowing the stability of the Federation. It will be up to Kirk and company to follow this Admiral's lead in order to save EVERYONE!
1. Chapter 1

**STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES**

**ADMIRAL'S WRIT**

By: Dan Bivens

Chapter 1

"Admiral on deck!"

No sooner said than a second crimson-shirted Security ensign used a centuries-old bosun's whistle to properly pipe in this Fleet Admiral beamed aboard the USS ENTERPRISE.

As the shrill sound trailed away, Captain James T. Kirk stepped forward from the foursome standing straight and tall before the main transporter room control console, presently overseen via navigator-turned-assistant chief engineer, Lt. DeSalle…

"Welcome aboard, Admiral, sir," Kirk grinned, though he harbored significant suspicion and even a little ill will in respects to the recent receipt of a scrambled subspace command to alter former Warp-traveled plans to streak to a Starbase for a single solitary beam up. "If you would like, my First Officer, Commander Spock, can escort you to your temporary quarters on…"

"There's no time," swiftly said the Fleet Admiral, very probably the youngest, in true years, to secure such a lofty officer's rank. "I require your top people and you in your main briefing room right away, Captain Kirk."

Before a reply was spoken from the handsome commanding officer of what was quickly becoming the most celebrated starship in Starfleet, this Admiral boldly left through the rapidly parting doors.

For Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty, curiosity quickly and quietly passed from person to person. Then, Captain Kirk quite naturally in the lead, this colorful collection of top officers swiftly stepped through barely a half-minute later.

All four, including Commander Spock, though his was the most emotionless of all the expressions currently controlling these recognizable countenances, were all clearly consumed with questions about such a secretive situation so far from Earth.

As was, a little later, more completely expressed in a starship transcription…

CAPTAIN'S LOG, STARDATE: 2133.7. As per recently received Starfleet orders via subspace, the ENTERPRISE was diverted to Starbase 27 in order to beam over Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen. Aside from the strangeness surrounding the arrival of such a high-ranking member of Command, normally located only on Earth at Starfleet Headquarters, there was the inexplicable intensity of the man from the moment he materialized on the transporter platform. Even Mr. Spock apparently pondered the possibility that the ENTERPRISE and crew were about to be thrust into some ominous operation. One that would sway whole worlds and, maybe, even affect the future of Starfleet.

Seated on all sides of the strangely shaped conference table, tri-screen display system situated in its smooth-surfaced center, were Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, Dr. Leonard H. McCoy, and Lt.-Commander Montgomery Scott. At it's head was Admiral Jason Bowen. Imposing even in a plain gold-green Command-grade duty-shirt, with appropriately impressive sleeve braids, leaving little doubt as to whom proper respect and obedience should and would be directed…

"Gentlemen," Admiral Bowen began with a grimaced mien more than tense enough to send shivers down everyone's backs…save Spock's, of course. "What I am about to divulge has been pre-approved by both Starfleet Command and the Admiralty. It has also been seconded by the Federation Council and the Federation President. Unfortunately, due to the duty-bound import of the present set of circumstances, you cannot contact Earth in regards to verification transmission. You must, somehow, place your complete confidence unquestioningly in me for the duration. Otherwise, Captain Kirk, I shall be forced to supercede your authority and temporarily take the ENTERPRISE for purposes presently unclear to you. Meaning, James, that you shall be sent to your quarters where you would remain until such time as…"

"No need for that, Admiral Bowen," a suddenly incensed starship Captain quickly cut in, while seriously struggling to maintain some semblance of obedience. Even in the shadow of such overt oppressiveness. "But, and I'm sure I speak for my superior staff sitting here…now…when I stress the respectful need to know much more. Sir."

A smile swiftly played upon the youthful features of the Fleet Admiral, which he swiftly suppressed, before finally deciding to elucidate…

"Captain Kirk…gentlemen," shakily said Admiral Bowen while looking for just the right words to preface something still so seemingly unlikely, even to those Starfleet scientific investigators already looking into a situation as potentially terrifying as this. "Before I make available the dark details, let me start by stating that nothing…not Klingons nor Romulans nor godlike deviants!…have ever posed so much menace to Federation worlds as what has recently been uncovered."

"I don't know about everybody else," Dr. McCoy quaintly quipped, his Southern drawl deepening like his glowering look. "But I, for one, would like to know what the hell's got Starfleet and the Federation so damned nervous that they sent out a Fleet Admiral to commandeer a starship! Sir!"

"Bones…"

"No, no, Captain," Admiral Bowen injected gently with a lifting of his left hand. "Dr. McCoy's quite right in demanding immediate explication. Especially since, in the next ten or twenty hours, this ship and crew could, quite probably, be hurled headfirst into harm's way! Making the good Doctor's ordinarily docile sickbay just this side of…"

"Admiral," calmly cut in Spock, sensing a sharp and rapid rise in apprehensive anxiety within his Human compeers. "Perhaps if you would utilize ship's computers to more readily reveal the precise nature of what has clearly caused concern within Starfleet and the Federation…"

"Yes, Mr. Spock, of course," nodded Admiral Bowen, completely impressed by the half-Human/half-Vulcan in blue shirt whose slanted brows lifted and whose pointy-tipped ears wriggled ever-so-slightly. "Gentlemen…this microtape will explain everything. I hope."

Suddenly, it seemed, a scarlet-colored squarish palm-sized plastic-like object, all too familiar to Starfleet officers on active starship assignment, appeared in the right hand of the Fleet Admiral.

Without a word, the grim-faced Admiral Jason Bowen inserted the seemingly solid block of lightweight plastic into a slot designed for reading microtapes and instantaneously displaying their data, visuals as well as words, onto the three small display screens seemingly hovering over the middle of the misshapen escritoire.

What would follow would invariably vex even the emotionless mind of Mr. Spock…

END OF CHAPTER 1


	2. Chapter 2

**STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES**

**ADMIRAL'S WRIT**

By: Dan Bivens

Chapter 2

CAPTAIN'S LOG, SUPPLEMENTAL: My concerns, coupled with curiosity, was swiftly answered…and no doubt the same could be said for Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Scott…the instant images, both authentic footage as well as simulated scenes, flickered across the tri-screen display on the main briefing room's table. Still some small part of me found it difficult to fully believe. There, in crystal clear computer-relayed representations, actual as well as computer produced, was what had apparently happened on Federation planets near the unknown frontiers of deepest space.

Such as…

On a recently recognized world by the name of Ikor'a 7, situated in a Sector some one hundred light-years further than any Federation planet at the time, actual footage augmented by simulations told a strange and disturbing tale.

One that was passionlessly reported via starship's computer…

"On Stardate 2124.9, in the largest locatable city on Ikor'a 7 called Rekka'na, a minor earthquake cracked open a subsurface section of said city. Such somehow allowed an unknown chemical cloud, invisible to the unaided eye as well as utterly odorless, to spread more rapidly than a natural internal emanation. Swiftly it settled over all Ikor'ans as well as less-evolved life forms coexisting inside said city. Most especially susceptible were pets bearing a remarkable resemblance to Human favorites frequently referred to as 'dogs'."

"Once the simplistic cellular nuclei of the genetic material making up dog-like pets commonly called, by Ikor'ans, elani, the following quickly occurred…"

While Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty looked on with increasing interest clothed within a growing fear for all residents of the United Federation of Planets…

And as Admiral Jason Bowen watched while once again undergoing a wide range of reactions stemming from his own personal concerns in regards to Federation persons…

The dog-like elani, looking a lot like the Dalmatian dogs hailing from Old Earth and still in existence not only there, but on dozens of Human-inhabited colony planets spread through UFP space, suddenly underwent a frighteningly fast physical transformation.

Grrrrllllll!

One that saw a single solitary elani maliciously mauling its humanoid master…

"No! Stop! Noooooo!"

…until another terrible transformation took place, from cellular level up, that saw the formerly normal Ikor'an rapidly restructured to become almost identical to the monstrosity metamorphosed minutes before from the affected dog-like elani.

"Jesus…," came McCoy's unconscious comment concerning the seemingly impossible images being so steadily displayed.

"Mother Mary…," came Scotty's astonished and sickened response.

"Fascinating," calmly commented Spock with no hint of honest Human emotion in reaction to so horrible a situation spreading so rapidly around Ikor'a 7.

A situation that saw, over the next 48 hours, virtually every living thing, elani as well as Ikor'an, attacked and transmogrified into single-minded monsters. Monsters who next utilized basic understanding of space flight via Ikor'an-cum-creatures to leave their planet in order to Warp-travel to other worlds within the Federation.

Which, again within only a couple of days, saw formerly humanoid inhabitants turned into monsters along with their previously peaceful pets. And on and on and on, until…

"As you can see, gentlemen," Admiral Bowen at last said as the microtape images came to a welcome end, "the Federation is in the most dire danger it has ever encountered. Whatever this mutation might be, it seems, so far, to be absolutely unstoppable."

"How many homeworlds of the Federation have fallen before this strange scourge, Admiral?" asked Spock, still a living testimony to Vulcan self-control, with his hands held before him in such a fashion as to form a finger-pyramid pointing to the center of the table.

Heaving a very heavy sigh, saying as much as his soon-to-be-spoken statements…

"As of the moment I beamed aboard the ENTERPRISE, Mr. Spock…seven. And computer projections clearly show that, at the current rate of physical transformations from attack to…"

"Fully half of Federation planets," gently injected a still dispassionate Science Officer with complete faith in his own mental computations, "within five days. Including…Earth."

It didn't take long for a silence as semi-solid as the atmosphere of some Jupiter-type planet to permeate the briefing room's recycled air. Then…

"Somehow," said Captain Kirk in a tense tone and firm facial affectation, "the ENTERPRISE has got to stop the spread of this trans-planet epidemic…before the Federation is forever lost. To your stations."

Even as Spock, Scotty, and McCoy quickly stood and stepped toward the rapidly opening briefing room doors, Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen adamantly addressed Captain Kirk, "Jim…I'm sure you understand that I must assume a stance of implied command next to you on Deck One."

"Of course, Admiral Bowen," Kirk was quick to counter with his handsome face a mask of dauntless determination. "I wouldn't have it any other way. Sir."

END OF CHAPTER 2


	3. Chapter 3

**STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES**

**ADMIRAL'S WRIT**

By: Dan Bivens

Chapter 3

CAPTAIN'S LOG, STARDATE 2139.1: Traveling at a very rapid and dangerous Warp 8, the ENTERPRISE was quickly coming within range of a world called Okari. One of the older planets belonging to the UFP. Inhabited by humanoids considerably closer to the logic-minded Vulcans than the more emotional Humans. But not in physical form. In that they are indeed damn near Human, save for the fact that their eyes were a single solid color, ranging from vibrant reds to basic black. I can only hope that our arrival will be in time. On a more personal note: there's something about Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen that doesn't sit right. He seems a bit too personally concerned with this "disease" than one would ordinarily expect of such a high-ranking Starfleet officer. Such was why I asked Spock to secretively access his service records as well as his personal records. In the meantime…

"Report, Mr. Sulu."

"We should be close enough for orbit in about two minutes, Captain," Lt. Hikaru Sulu said even as such was easily evident via the viewscreen's display of the planet to which they had traversed space at the relative equivalence of 512 times the speed-of-light. His hands nimbly manipulating the Helm controls.

"Ensign Chekov," said Kirk quite quickly, with the Fleet Admiral virtually hovering very near the Captain's chair in which anxiously sat its handsome commander. "Plot a geosynchronous orbit above the capital city."

"Aye, aye, sir," was the Russian-accented response from the youthful officer seated at Navigation next to Sulu.

"Lt. Uhura, have you made any contact with the Okarians?" asked Captain Kirk of his beauteous ebony communications officer directly to his rear.

"Trying, sir," sighed Lt. Nyota Uhura while attempting to establish two-way transmission twixt starship and planet. "So far…no response."

"Keep trying, Lieutenant."

"Aye, Captain."

"I don't like this," Admiral Bowen basically said barely loud enough to be understood by the centrally seated starship commander. "I don't like this at all."

"Neither do I, Admiral," admitted Captain Kirk, even as the ENTERPRISE dropped from Warp 8 to sublight with only a slight shudder coursing underneath the deck plates. "Kirk to Security…ready two ensigns to beam down with the away team ASAP. Bridge out."

"Two ensigns, Captain?" Admiral Bowen promptly pondered while looking at the still seated Kirk even as the ENTERPRISE was preparing to enter orbit about Okari. "Do you think that's enough…especially in light of…"

"Unless you plan on exerting your override authority, Admiral, I intend to investigate this situation before committing too many armed men and women to a planet still protected by Federation Law. Sir."

It quickly became clear to anyone noting such that Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen was suddenly suffused with thoughts unbecoming any officer. Even one of his standing.

It also seemed especially clear that Captain Kirk would cling to his command until such time as Admiral Bowen dared to relieve him. Meaning this superior Starfleet officer would learn what Loyalty truly turned out to be in regards to this group of tight-knit bridge personnel.

All the while, both in Warp 8 travel and the subsequent sublight approach to the planet proper, Commander Spock had pulled all records, professional and personal, in regards to Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen. As clandestinely ordered by James T. Kirk. However, such would still tend to be a relatively slow process, considering the sterling past this Starfleet flag officer had had. Not to mention a much harder-to-obtain set of records from a pre-Starfleet past.

Such security was expected of any superior officer, from Lt.-Commander to Captain to Commodore on up the chain, both at Starfleet Command and on active starships such as the ENTERPRISE.

Still, Spock's expertise with computers was so strong that such security stumbling blocks could not completely keep him out. Which, quite naturally, was what Kirk had counted on.

Unfortunately, before the Vulcan could completely push past mega-encryption protection in order to reach the very heart of Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen's entire record…Starfleet as well as various individual data…

"Captain!" Uhura exclaimed loudly while half-swiveling toward the center seat of the saucer section's Deck One, quite understandably bringing everyone's attention to her. Even the ever-emotionless/always-logical Commander Spock.

"What is it, Lieutenant?" Kirk quickly requested while swiveling all the way around and unconsciously scooting to the edge of the Captain's chair. Clearly awaiting the worst.

"I've tapped into a personal Comm channel from the capital city, sir!" she stated tensely, no doubt due to what was coming in over the silvery device inserted in one ear.

"On screen, Uhura," ordered Kirk as everyone diverted their attention toward the viewscreen currently occupied via views, from mid-orbit, of Okari.

Even such as Spock would experience something similar to the shock of his Human compeers on the bridge at what wound up dominating their main viewer…

"Most interesting."

"Help us!" shouted the shuddering-with-rage/hate Okarian civilian standing in what had been his home prior to whatever happened to lay waste to semi-luxurious furnishings and fixtures as well as bloodying the Okarian, himself. "Help me! P-please…!"

"This is Captain James T. Kirk of the USS ENTERPRISE," said the handsome starship commander, currently rising to stand before his center seat. "We're here to help. Can you tell us what happened and to what degree the 'disease' has spread on your planet?"

"It's…everywhere, Captain," said the straining-to-maintain normalcy Okarian as his solid-blue eyes slowly began to glow an iridescent red, followed fast by a strange physical pulsation throughout his bloodied body. Clearly, this scourge of the cosmos was working to totally alter another humanoid into a monster.

Somehow, seeing it taking place at the exact same moment as this transmission was much more psychologically disturbing than the images from the microtape previously reproduced in the briefing room by Admiral Bowen.

"Oh, my God…," quietly exclaimed Lt. Uhura, literally placing a voice to the overall reactions currently coursing through the bridge crew at the sight of something so sickening occurring to an otherwise ordinary individual.

As the seconds passed syrupy slow, the Okarian completely metamorphosed into a monstrous mass of mangled muscle and drool-dripping bicuspids clearly capable of ripping apart an average person.

Worse, or so it seemed to Spock, was the fact that this Okarian's individual intellect was utterly lost to the bestial brain now apparently completing such transmogrification from cellular levels to overall visible end-result.

Something that, not yet noticed by Captain Kirk nor Mr. Spock, watching this freshly transformed abnormality demolish what little was left of his home and, of course, his Comm system, had evidently touched some extremely personal point within Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen who was so hell-bent on heading up this emergency mission.

"Commodore Kevin," Admiral Bowen angrily growled beneath his breath as this sight of complete mutation via an as-yet-unknown 'abnormality illness' brought back bad memories from a recent situation purposely left unsaid. "I will avenge you…no matter how many must die to do so!"

END OF CHAPTER 3


	4. Chapter 4

**STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES**

**ADMIRAL'S WRIT**

By: Dan Bivens

Chapter 4

CAPTAIN'S LOG, SUPPLEMENTAL: It was especially hard to helplessly watch what was a normal Okarian, clearly attacked at some point by a previously devolved individual, transform into a monster. And since, just before that transformation, this Okarian had said that this had occurred 'everywhere', there was no time to lose. Therefore, as fast as possible, I'd led Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, two ensigns from Security, and, like it or not, Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen to the main transporter room. Somehow, I have got to figure out Admiral Bowen's true motivations for leaving Earth and the safety of Starfleet Headquarters for such a decidedly dangerous mission. But that could come…later.

"Energize."

As their atoms were temporarily disassembled to be stored, again temporarily, in the pattern buffer before, in the space of just two to two-and-a-half seconds, the matter stream that was these very individuals were sent, as an unseen beam, to their desired destination on the planet's surface.

In this case: the very heart of the capital city.

Amidst a familiar transporter whine, while the beamed atomic structures sparkled for a couple of scant seconds, six figures formed.

"Security…"

Reacting exactly as trained, the two ensigns in crimson shirts snatched phaser pistols from their hips, having already set them on heavy stun, while Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock pulled their Phaser Twos as well. Followed swiftly by Admiral Bowen.

Leaving only Dr. McCoy with his phaser pistol still positioned at his hip while holding his medical tricorder in one hand and the spinning, internally, medi-scanner in the other. Performing a more or less standard medical scan of their surroundings up to twenty meters distant.

"I'm getting readings all over the place, Jim," McCoy quickly told his superior officer and fast friend. "And none of 'em are reading as anything remotely humanoid."

"Mr. Spock?" Kirk asked of his Science Officer/First Officer/friend.

Spock, still holding his phaser pistol in his right hand, used his scientific tricorder to intensify said sweeps in order to obtain, one would hope, a more precise scan and, therefore, more detailed data to be related.

"Dr. McCoy is quite correct, Captain," Spock staidly said less than thirty seconds after said scans with his tricorder. "I read roughly fifty-to-sixty physically transmogrified forms lurking just out of sight. From their demeanor and tense stance, I would have to deduce that they are preparing to attack the away team."

Making a command decision on the spot, something for which Captain James T. Kirk had come to be famed, he dialed up the potential power output of his phaser pistol to maximum while also ordering such from these Security ensigns and Mr. Spock. The Fleet Admiral doing so a split-second before said order.

"…our survival is paramount, people," concluded Kirk before further ordering, "so let's get to some solid cover. Mr. Spock, use your tricorder to pick out a building that doesn't have 'monsters' near it's facing edifice. Bones, continue tricorder and medi-scanner sweeps. The more medical data gathered, the better equipped we'll be to find some sort of solution that doesn't center on wholesale slaughter of these poor bastards. Move!"

Though Spock's scans via scientific tricorder did locate a building not filled with malformed monstrosities seeking their bloody deaths, it was some sixty-five meters ahead of the away team. Standing between them and said safe destination were numerous monsters that would no doubt try and stop them from finding such safety.

"Here they come!" shouted, somewhat madly, Admiral Bowen while wasting no time in training his phaser pistol on one, then two, then three, then several in order to disintegrate formerly normal Okarian residents.

Such subconsciously caused the two Security ensigns to also send disintegrative energy toward still more malformed creatures currently rushing forth.

Though Captain Kirk quietly cursed such unsanctioned, by him, action, such still stood as the end-result of these abruptly attacking malevolent miscreants in order to preserve their own lives.

At last, seemingly an eternity later, though Spock's Vulcan consciousness concluded it to be a matter of mere minutes, the away team took temporary refuge just inside a large building quickly tricorder-identified to be the seat of jurisdictional leadership for a whole world.

"Concentrate your tricorder scans to just this building, Bones…Spock," quickly commanded Kirk even as he, Admiral Bowen, and the two Security ensigns in red remained ever vigilant with Phaser Twos tightly held in their hands. All aimed, at the moment, straight toward the entryway through which they had just stepped. "The last thing we want is to be surprised by these things in here."

After a few seconds of intensive scans from both scientific tricorder as well as medical…

"Looks clear, Jim."

"I concur, Captain. We seem to be utterly alone."

Though that, in itself, should've raised suspicions, especially in Spock, let alone Captain Kirk, no one made a comment contrary to such a statement. Except for Security, everyone else lowered their phasers while huddling close to Spock and McCoy.

"Well…?" Kirk curtly asked in an insistent tone, while Admiral Bowen quietly seconded such in unspoken urgency that bordered on blind ire. The sort normally held within the heart and soul of someone seeking a personal retribution for an individualized loss.

Kirk was too concerned with keeping himself and his officers alive to even notice that this frenzied Fleet Admiral definitely displayed a personalized desire to destroy.

Spock, also, was so centered upon tricorder activity, coupled with possibly putting the phaser pistol in his other hand to fast use, that he had not noticed Admiral Bowen's overtly visible vigilante fervor.

Deep down, Dr. McCoy could care less. At the moment, while looking over all medical data connected with scans of former Okarians-cum-monsters faster than any previous space-borne plague, he would probably uphold the Fleet Admiral's death-dealing desires.

Deeper still, the doctor in the man might tend to bend to something Spock seemed so consistently concerned in regards to saving whatever would present him with scientifically important breakthroughs. As true to his Vulcan culture as to his position as Science Officer of the starship ENTERPRISE.

Then, unknown even to the tricorder scans Spock was still taking, not to mention the medical scans via McCoy's tricorder and medi-scanner sweeps…

Ak! Ak! Ak!

Spinning with phasers systematically aimed at the small source of such strange pseudo-barking, the away team was puzzled over a couple of points. One, this apparent pet, four-legged and furry, had not been detected via tricorders. Two, this cute and cuddly creature had somehow remained normal in a city, not to mention an entire planet, presently gripped by atrocious transmogrifications.

"Well, I'll be," McCoy smilingly managed, even as Captain Kirk, Admiral Bowen, and the two crimson-shirted Security ensigns slowly lowered their respective phasers. "C'mere, boy. C'mon."

Spock screwed his Vulcan countenance into an almost comical mask of puzzlement. All in direct response to the usually cynical starship CMO suddenly descending into a state of childlike affection for a fur-bearing creature as close to the dogs adored by Humans for millennia.

Lifting a single slanted eyebrow, Spock sarcastically said, "There would seem to be another side to you, Doctor. One that is most…disturbing."

"This animal may have pointed ears, Spock," snappishly replied Dr. McCoy even as he held the tail-wagging and cuddly cute quadruped close to his blue-shirted chest. "But, believe me, he's a lot easier to like than a cold-blooded Vulcan."

"Indeed," indolently replied Spock as a second slanted brow lifted to form a facial expression implicative of a true emotion. One of offense from such an obvious insult.

"Wanna pet 'im, Jim?" came McCoy's simplistic solicitation, though the Captain, as well as Admiral Bowen, was still too tense over a situation as potentially lethal as their continued intrusion on Okari.

"Better be careful, Bones, just because that thing's not changed, doesn't mean he won't."

A split-second after Kirk's cautioned comment, the previously playful four-legged survivor swiftly started to turn amidst snarling snaps and grievous growls…

RRRRRLLLLLL!

"Look out!"

"Ahgg! He bit me!"

Even as the little canine-like creature was dropped by Dr. McCoy, while its snarling Self continued to transform into a miniature monstrosity…

…and as a blast from the phaser pistol in Captain Kirk's hand disintegrated the deleterious transmutation…

…Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen cradled a bloody hand that had been bitten barely six seconds earlier.

"Oh, crap," McCoy said suddenly, using a word from a far-distant past that would invariably have Mr. Spock seeking such via his computers on the bridge of the ENTERPRISE.

As far as a reaction from Admiral Bowen, his was as expected as even ensigns could comprehend…

"I'm infected."

END OF CHAPTER 4


	5. Chapter 5

**STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES**

**ADMIRAL'S WRIT**

By: Dan Bivens

Chapter 5/Conclusion

CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER'S LOG, STARDATE 2140.1: After arranging for an immediate beam-up, just after I had delivered a sedative strong enough to fell an elephant via my hypospray, an emergency medical team met us in the main transporter room with a stretcher. While Captain Kirk returned to the bridge, the ENTERPRISE EMTs, Mr. Spock, and I quickly took the patient, Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen, straight to sickbay. Once there, the Admiral, still sedated, was promptly placed in the hyperbaric chamber in order to steadily increase its inner atmospheric density by a factor of between two-to-three over and above anything 'normal'. From my medical tricorder data, seconded by Spock's scientific tricorder data, we knew that the only way to counteract the potential transmutation of the man into a monster was to place him into such an increased pressure situation. Meantime, Mr. Spock, Nurse Christine Chapel, and I would work feverishly to find an antidote. Not only for Admiral Bowen, but also, by way of reversing the devolution of his mind and body, everyone else so afflicted on several Federation planets. May God guide us…or get the hell out of our way!

While Dr. McCoy, Nurse Chapel, and Mr. Spock sought such a "cure" in the medical labs housed inside the starship ENTERPRISE, all willing to work around the clock, if necessary…

Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen, the plague-like poison still coursing through his system, while virtually floating inside the hyperbaric chamber, would continue in an unconscious state closer to R.E.M. sleep than total mental inactivity.

Thus causing swiftly fleeting, though thorough in personally pertinent details, imagery to flood into the forefront of his remembered transpiration…

"Treat her well, Commodore Kevin," offered a freshly promoted, rocket-fast!, Jason Bowen as he made the unimaginable leap from Commodore, himself, to Admiral due to his courageous command record in connection with the starship USS ROBERT APRIL. "Treat her well…and she'll never let you down."

"Don't worry, Admiral," began a beaming former-Captain-cum-Commodore, himself fresh from the bridge of an old, recently decommissioned Constitution-class starship designated as USS ESSEX. "I'll give her the love I gave to mine for nearly nine years. You just show the same sterling leadership in the Admiralty of Starfleet Headquarters that you did on this ship's center seat and everyone will be the better for it."

As an extended hand of friendship from Commodore Kevin was shaken via a firm grip from Admiral Bowen, the two wordlessly bid their final farewells so that the APRIL could leave one of the big bays of the orbiting Spacedock directly over Earth.

Admiral Bowen watched a lot longer than normal. Watching as his starship, now under the quite capable command of Commodore Kevin, himself a highly decorated Starfleet officer, continued out of sight via sublight speeds produced by its impulse engines. Then, at last, he turned to begin a brilliant command career as an Admiral.

Heaving a very heavy and downhearted sigh, he muttered to himself, "Nothing will take the place of actual starship command-duty. Nothing."

Meanwhile, in the medical labs of the USS ENTERPRISE…

"Captain Kirk to Dr. McCoy," came the intercom-related words of worry from six decks straight up, prompting McCoy to wearily respond as he hit the white "talk" button with his thumb.

"McCoy here, Jim," sadly said a deeply pouting Doctor via intercom connection from Deck Five to Deck One. "It's not looking too good. Spock, Christine, and I've been at this using the most sophisticated examination systems and computers currently available. So far the cells seem resistive to any and all forms of medicines and medical procedures."

"So what you're saying, Bones, is," said the man in the Captain's chair via armrest intercom as perceived sadness dominated his handsome facial features, "there's no hope for Admiral Bowen. That about it?"

"So far," heaved Dr. McCoy while leaning next to the red intercom on a lab wall. "We'll keep trying, but we can't keep the Admiral in the hyperbaric chamber forever. Not without his 'disease' forcing a transformation that would force us to either increase pressure far and away more risky to his continued existence or…"

"Or," cut in Kirk disconsolately in regards to a ranking officer deserving of Life for all the years such as he had devoted to, first, starship command then, eventually, as a Fleet Admiral at Starfleet Headquarters. "We phaser him into nothingness. Understood, Bones. You and Spock…do what you can. Kirk out."

No sooner had such ended via deactivation of Deck-to-Deck intercom connections, than Dr. McCoy made his way into the medical lab's aphoristic heart where Spock and Nurse Chapel continued in-depth testing-and-treatment attempts of obtained cellular material from Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen, than in his sedated thoughts …

"Emergency transmission from the APRIL, Admiral," an aide to the recently elevated to Fleet Admiral, howbeit his young-in-years age was clearly counterbalanced by his unbelievably bold administrative capabilities. "Its commander has specifically asked for you, sir."

Suffused with a sense of extreme loss prior to proof of such, Admiral Bowen leapt to his black booted feet, sternly stating, "Take me to Starfleet Communications, Commander. Immediately!"

How well the following flowed so realistically from recent recollection…

Admiral Bowen had walked straight into Starfleet Communications like a man with a mission, demanding, "Put the transmission on screen. Now!"

With the tapping of certain controls, such was swiftly accomplished as the luminous wall-sized screen displayed a decidedly sick-from-something Commodore Keith currently in command of a severely stricken-by-disease starship…

"Admiral," impotently managed the Commodore even as evidence of an epidemic could, indeed, be observed all about the bridge area. "Something has…infected the crew…of the APRIL. Something has…infected me…"

"Explain, Commodore Keith," staidly insisted Admiral Bowen without allowing personal feelings to be too easily seen by those on-duty officers surrounding Starfleet's latest administrative director. "What the hell happened?"

"We answered a distress call," raggedly reported Commodore Keith while forcing himself to maintain mental disciplines drummed in via years of Starfleet service. "From…from a freighter approaching the star system…Epsilon Aurigae. I took an away team…to investigate and assist. We were attacked by…by monsters…no longer men or women. No longer Human or humanoid. We were swiftly transported out…but not before suffering superficial bites. Bites which would…would wind up…with an untreatable material…literally rewriting our…our cellular structures. Though I've…I've initiated a self-destruct sequence…those on that freighter…have entered Warp. They…they will end up…infecting an entire planetary populace…transforming them into a whole world…of monstrous transmogrifications. Alert…alert all starships. Seek…some sort of…of antitoxin. Either that or…or destroy…"

The last of that subspace transmission from a still distant, by some 600 parsecs, starship was of Commodore Keith entering into a final transformational situation similar to some seen elsewhere on the bridge of the USS ROBERT APRIL…

…that was until its subsequent destruction via a set-to-explode matter-antimatter reactor core.

"My…God," exclaimed someone sitting at one of several stations for the securing of such subspace transmissions.

Such was reflected in the facial expression swiftly overwhelming the Command mien of Admiral Bowen. One that rapidly degraded into a strong desire for personalized retribution for the sudden deaths of Commodore Keith and the crew compliment inherited, as it were, from Jason Bowen. As well as whole worlds still to be endangered by the deadly epidemic.

Under his breath, but with an intensity too great to ignore, Admiral Bowen avowed, "Whatever and wherever this 'plague ship' ends up…I'll personally see to it a starship utterly obliterates all affected! I'll press the best starship, after my own, into expeditious service…the USS ENTERPRISE!"

"Report," ordered Captain Kirk, having answered the summons to take a turbolift down and meet with both Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy in the self-same lab wherein the hyperbaric chamber was situated.

"Well, Jim…Spock and I did finally find an antidote to this 'disease'," McCoy commented, though his mussed mien left little doubt as to the all-nighter pulled by them both.

"Do I sense a 'but' in that statement, Bones?" Kirk curtly countered, his hands held tensely at his sides as Spock stepped past McCoy with look as cool and collected as ever expected from the half-Human/half-Vulcan Commander.

"Yes," Spock said stoically to his superior officer and, secretly at least, his best friend. "Though it is possible to develop a vaccine of sorts to stop the 'plague' cold…and though such holds out hope of reversing the devolving effects for the rest…it would certainly seem that having Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen in the hyperbaric chamber's pressure-constricted interior has caused a curious fast-fusion of infected cellular nuclei that…"

"What Spock's trying to say in his complicated Vulcan manner, Jim," interjected a grumpy McCoy suffering from a certain degree of guilt-laden regret. "Using pressure some three times normal, in order to keep our patient from transforming, only ended up speeding that process of permutation to a point where, the instant we let him out…"

"Thank you, Bones, I get the picture," replied a privately appalled Captain Kirk as he clearly conceded that disintegration by phaser pistol seemed the only outcome. "Does he know?"

Spock, still standing tall and suffused with Vulcan logic, acquiesced to McCoy for the response to such a straightforward, and emotionally motivated, question…

"Yes. Spock and I told him minutes before requesting your presence," explained Dr. McCoy moodily. "He's accepted the only option open to him, under such dire circumstances. Of course, as the commanding officer of this starship…it's still up to you."

One could cut the apprehension with a proverbial blade, as Kirk came to secretly curse his command duties in such situations…

"You have a choice, Admiral," Kirk tentatively told, via intercom, to the pressure-restrained personage facing something most needed not face until retirement from Starfleet. A Fleet Admiral already settled within his heart and head in regards to what had to be done so Death did not lay claim to the crew compliment of another starship. "Death by phaser…or death in the void and vacuum of space."

"I'd always planned on having my body's 'burial' to take place in space, Jim," bravely revealed a reticent Starfleet Command-grade individual who'd done so much to protect the peoples of the UFP. A man more than deserving of a hero's expiration.

James T. Kirk understood. And nodded.

CAPTAIN'S LOG, SUPPLEMENTAL: After adjusting the oxygen mixture so consciousness could be completely pacified…Mr. Spock and Mr. Scott performed a rare-but-executable site-to-site transporter procedure. One that dematerialized a man…an Admiral…from the confines of the pressurized hyperbaric chamber and re-materialize him in the airlessness of space. Both Spock and Dr. McCoy had made assurances to me that, under the unconscious condition created prior to transporter activity, Fleet Admiral Jason Bowen would not suffer…before suffocation and cold claimed him. He would be forever revered as a true hero on behalf of the billions such a sacrifice would, inevitably, save. He will be missed. And he will be remembered.

END


End file.
